Some enigmas and fiendish facets of human language: the relations between language and cognition investigated in the field of linguistic studies

• Grant number: 13/02646-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2013
• End date: April 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Fernanda Miranda da Cruz
• Grantee: Tamiris Feitosa Costa
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research intends to situate the places or theoretical productive fields for a better understanding of the relation between language and human cognition. The main purpose is to make a theoretical course which helps to view and better comprehend the relations liable of being theoretically established about cognition and language. Wherefore, the first way chosen for the development of this research is to draw the relations established or settable between Linguistics, as a field of knowledge, and the relations between language and cognition. Our main presupposition is: if we can establish that there is an undeniable relation between language and cognition, in which terms would be this relation or these relations fixed? Possibly, the theories or philosophers which look up to this question can, at certain points, diverge or converge. Guided by your standpoint or by the field of knowledge from where they speak, some authors, for instance, the studied until now, Chomsky 1970, Varela, Rosch & Gonçalves 2004, choose analytical categories to serve as a central element of a kind of methodological construction for the theorization or understanding of the relations between language and cognition. Depending on the main elements elected at these perspectives, the reflection about these relations may be seen differently. Just to quote some of them, sometimes the bottom line is culture, language, meaning, linguistics structures, cognition, thought, cognitive abilities, mental structures, perception or social interaction.